Confessions
by Kondoru
Summary: Lyuze has Yet Another Morbid moment.


CONFESSIONS BY KONDORU

Standard Disclaimers

Thanks to Pigey for Betaing.

I'm surly and out of sorts. Next few weeks will be having extra chemistry lessons Thursday and Friday…At 0800...And I have to drive into college first. But I do finally intended cracking this chemistry business (Only my third time…)

So Ill take it out on someone else. Lyuze makes a good target, (the way she pillages my wardrobe and all…All my fave anime characters seem to dress like me.)

Anyhow, be sure to work hard at `your` lessons, wont you? I'm back in education, enjoying my rather long winded teenage years…And I don't intend leaving school anytime soon.

Lyuze sat huddled up, staring into the fire.

It had been raining all day, but now was letting up. Somehow Lyuze had managed to get a fire started.

She was currently in an encampment of dying robots who were aimlessly wandering the waste, at least they claimed they were looking for Luna, but Lyuze knew aimlessness when she suffered from it.

Still, misery likes company.

Lyuze had donned the sacking robe of a penitient, and was content in her unhappiness. It passed the time she had until death, after all.

Now they had stopped for no reason at all, had set up some form of encampment, and were waiting for their apathy to lessen sufficiently for them to start wandering again.

Lyuze stretched, it was a big improvement on lurking in a scrapyard where she had been last.

And now she was cold.

In spite of the extra protection her sacking robe gave her, and the fire, Lyuze was chilled to her titanium bones.

Lyuze curled up into a ball.

As usual she was thinking morbid thoughts, and muttering under her breath. The other penitients round her ignored her; madness was normal in the world of Ruin.

Everyone who had survived this long were in greater or lesser degrees crazy.

"Casshern...Casshern..." she growled.

Casshern was the embodiment of insanity.

Casshern was evil incarnate.

Casshern was everything that was unclean.

Casshern was Death.

"He kills and kills and kills...until he stands upon a pile of corpses..."

Her mental image of her nemesis was of him crouched upon a mountain of decapitated robots, his white catsuit bespattered in defiling ash, rust and blood, mindlessly howling his madness to the dark sky. Casshern was a monster beyond imagination.

Or would be if Lyuze had not witnessed such infernal scenes herself.

Now they haunted her darkest nightmares, vying for those of her sister's death as the worst she had experienced.

Lyuze hated sleep these days; the world of Ruin haunted even the times she should be resting.

"Cassherns not a robot...No robot could be like that." She grimaced. "Cassherns not like `me!`"

Casshern was `almost` a human. He had been with the foul creatures, had probably indulged in, Lyuze gulped, sexual relations with humans.

There, the vile thought was out.

The robot girl gave a great shudder; she had a dirty taste in her mouth. Lyuze shook her head, sending water drops everywhere.

The old Lyuze would not have even begun to think such revolting, disgusting, unspeakable things.

(But into her head came the unbidden worlds of Liza; `Yes, Luna is very nice to humans...I have seen her kiss the men. ` Liza had said it in an offhand manner but now Lyuze realised she had implied more, much more. And if Luna had done so then it was very likely Casshern, with his oh-so-new body, would have attracted degenerate human attentions. Unclean as it might be...It was also a very real possibility.)

"Casshern deserves to die; there was a special place in Hell for the likes of him." Lyuze paused, no, best rethink that. Casshern `already` lived in Hell, a dark anarchic place, where nothing was born or made, and those who were alive were dying of a dreadful plague, those who had not been killed for meaningless reasons. There was nothing good left in this world.

And he had dragged them all down with him.

Why?

Why should her sister have suffered so? Why, for that matter should Lyuze have lived when so many had died, why should she now be squatting in the dirt before a wan fire like a `human`, awaiting the end...Or clutching at straws of salvation?

Lyuze sighed. She lay back on the stony ground.

No, Casshern was eternally damned.

Lyuze curled her lip. "And yet he still fights to protect the weak." She mutters, "He still desires to give up his immortal life in order to atone for his sins."

She shook her head.

"Cassherns not the emotionless killer who took Luna's life...He now has feelings, just like a normal robot...And he now is possessed of Free Will. I told him that I would let him live, I would keep him alive, just so he could see the Ruin with his own two eyes and begin, if only by a small amount, to understand his crimes." Lyuze picked up a stick and poked the fire thoughtfully. "Casshern may be a dweller in the lowest Hell...But that doesn't stop him fighting for others salvation." she sniffed, water dripping off her nose.

"It's for this reason I `must` get to Luna. I myself may be beyond saving. But I can take up where my sister left off, I'm Lyuze, nothing fazes me, Ill fight to protect Luna from her enemies."

She gave a laugh, "I don't care what she does to her `friends`, As a Robot I'm beyond caring about her love life."

However...

"He's doomed, he will still be alive when everyone dies…And what will life be like for him then? As I see it, Casshern is in for a long time of loneliness… If not until the end of the world." She closed here eyes. "Death would be a mercy...And yes, and yes...Even a Fallen Angel needs to be loved."

Lyuze sat up suddenly.

"And...I'm in love with Casshern..." she tailed off. Lyuze gave a wry smile at the uncaring sky. "It's `me` who should be abasing myself, begging the world to forgive me."

A shadow crossed Lyuze. She looked up. A dark robed figure was settling down opposite her. They too were in a sacking robe, the hood pulled well over their head.

"You're in love?" The stranger asked curiously.

She froze. That voice. The stranger shifted. Lyuze got the glimpse of blue eyes set in a pale, dirt streaked face.

She `was` Damned, wasn't she?

Lyuze unfolded her arms. "No, I just wanted something real horrible to confess to, that's all."

"Oh" said Casshern but Lyuze was never quite sure what he meant by that.

It started to rain again.


End file.
